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The Pain We Can’t Mention
But Somehow, We Must
Every family, I think, has its rough patches. They do, right? I’ve heard one-off jokes for years about the American dysfunctional family, “I’ll really be surprised when I see a functional family — har dee har har!”
We’ve heard forever about the “crazy uncle” at Thanksgiving, or the “wicked stepmother” that teens have to endure. But what about when all of that is your life? Your reality? What then? What about the toxic cocktail of a divorced dad who starts dating a much younger woman whose whole motive seems to be to create and ferment drama in your family, and your family already had enough organic chaos to deal with?
What about the family who has a daughter struggling with autism as an adult, trying to find her way through the world, but her dad is busy getting high and ignoring the notion that his daughter needs him to grow up and be an actual adult now?
How do we manage the people in our lives we see careening off the cliff because they are coming untangled, and we can see it, but we wonder if it is actually any of our business — is it our business?
We are living in this curated world now, of Instagram photo albums of life experiences, seeing mostly snippets of happy days on the beach or the front porch, family hikes and dinner parties, where each of the pictures can be…
